[HN Gopher] The Claude Code Source Leak: fake tools, frustration...
       ___________________________________________________________________
        
       The Claude Code Source Leak: fake tools, frustration regexes,
       undercover mode
        
       Related ongoing thread: _Claude Code 's source code has been leaked
       via a map file in their NPM registry_ -
       https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47584540  Also related:
       https://www.ccleaks.com
        
       Author : alex000kim
       Score  : 565 points
       Date   : 2026-03-31 13:04 UTC (9 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (alex000kim.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (alex000kim.com)
        
       | pixl97 wrote:
       | >Claude Code also uses Axios for HTTP.
       | 
       | Interesting based on the other news that is out.
        
         | alex000kim wrote:
         | Oh right, I just saw
         | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47582220 will update the
         | post with this link
        
         | greenavocado wrote:
         | What version?
        
           | Stagnant wrote:
           | 1.13.6, so should not be affected by the malware
        
         | chuckadams wrote:
         | The exploit is a postinstall hook, so CC users would be
         | unaffected. Claude Code itself is most likely built with bun
         | and not npm, so the CC developers would also be immune.
        
         | username44 wrote:
         | Just to corroborate sibling comments, I checked my Claude Code
         | VM (native install) for the IOC and it does not appear
         | infected.
        
       | OfirMarom wrote:
       | Undercover mode is the most concerning part here tbh.
        
         | anonymoushn wrote:
         | why
        
           | AnimalMuppet wrote:
           | Well, as a general rule, I don't do business with people who
           | lie to me.
           | 
           | You've got a business, and you sent me junk mail, but you
           | made it look like some official government thing to get me to
           | open it? I'm done, _just because you lied on the envelope_. I
           | don 't care how badly I need your service. There's a dozen
           | other places that can provide it; I'll pick one of them
           | rather than you, because you've shown yourself to be
           | dishonest right out of the gate.
           | 
           | Same thing with an AI (or a business that creates an AI).
           | You're willing to lie about who you are (or have your tool do
           | so)? What else are you willing to lie to me about? I don't
           | have time in my life for that. I'm out right here.
        
             | simianwords wrote:
             | What's the lie? It's just asking to not reveal internal
             | names
        
               | BoredPositron wrote:
               | You are spamming the whole fucking thread with the same
               | nonsense. It is instructed to hide that the PR was made
               | via Claude Code. I don't know why people who are so AI
               | forward like yourself have such a problem with telling
               | people that they use AI for coding/writing, it's a
               | weirdly insecure look.
        
               | simianwords wrote:
               | I can do that right now with Claude Code without this
               | undercover mode.. In fact I do it many times at work.
               | What's the big deal in this?
               | 
               | Do you not think it is an overreaction to panic like this
               | if I can do exactly what the undercover mode does by
               | simply asking Claude?
        
               | BoredPositron wrote:
               | It's different if it's an institutional decision or a
               | personal like in your case. Which is and I am repeating
               | myself here borderline insecure.
        
               | simianwords wrote:
               | what's insecure about it? if it is up to the institution
               | to make that decision - you can still do it. Claude is
               | not stopping you from making that decision
        
               | BoredPositron wrote:
               | You have to work on your reading comprehension or you are
               | intentional deceptive. Bye.
        
               | simianwords wrote:
               | ?? why doesn't your panic apply to other agents like
               | Codex that don't advertise that the commit was made by an
               | AI by default? strange!
        
               | BoredPositron wrote:
               | Because this thread is about claude. Are you that
               | challenged?
        
             | otterley wrote:
             | Out of curiosity, given two code submissions that are
             | completely identical--one written solely by a human and one
             | assisted by AI--why should its provenance make any
             | difference to you? Is it like fine art, where it's
             | important that Picasso's hand drew it? Or is it like an
             | instruction manual, where the author is unimportant?
             | 
             | Similarly, would you consider it to be dishonest if my
             | human colleague reviewed and made changes to my code, but I
             | didn't explicitly credit them?
        
               | AnimalMuppet wrote:
               | Why does the provenance make any difference? Let me
               | increase your options. Option 1: You completely hand-
               | wrote it. Option 2: You were assisted by an AI, but you
               | carefully reviewed it. Option 3: You were assisted by an
               | AI (or the AI wrote the whole thing), and you just said,
               | "looks good, YOLO".
               | 
               | Even if the code is line-for-line identical, the
               | difference is in how much trust I am willing to give the
               | code. If I have to work in the neighborhood of that code,
               | I need to know what degree of skepticism I should be
               | viewing it with.
        
               | otterley wrote:
               | That's the thing. As someone evaluating pull requests,
               | should you trust the code based on its provenance, or
               | should you trust it based on its content? Automated
               | testing can validate code, but it can't validate people.
               | 
               | ISTM the most efficient and objective solution is to
               | invest in AI more on both sides of the fence.
        
               | AnimalMuppet wrote:
               | In the future, that may be fine. We're not in that future
               | yet. We're still at a place where I don't fully trust AI-
               | only code to be as solid as code that is at least
               | thoroughly reviewed by a knowledgeable human.
               | 
               | (Yes, I put "AI-only" and "knowledgeable" in there as
               | weasel words. But I think that with them, it is not
               | currently a very controversial case.)
        
               | feature20260213 wrote:
               | Yes because you can be sued for copyright violation if
               | you don't know the origin of one, and not the other.
        
               | otterley wrote:
               | As an attorney, I know copyright law. (This is not legal
               | advice.) There's nothing about copyright law that says
               | you have to credit an AI coding agent for contributing to
               | your work. The person receiving the code has to perform
               | their due diligence in any case to determine whether the
               | author owns it or has permission from the owner to
               | contribute it.
        
               | hajile wrote:
               | Can you back this up with legal precedence? To my
               | knowledge, nothing of the sort has been ruled by the
               | courts.
               | 
               | Additionally, this raises another big issue. A few years
               | ago, a couple guys used software (what you could argue
               | was a primitive AI) to generated around 70 billion unique
               | pieces of music which amounts to essentially every piece
               | of copyrightable music using standard music scales.
               | 
               | Is the fact that they used software to develop this
               | copyrighted material relevant? If not, then their
               | copyright should certainly be legal and every new song
               | should pay them royalties.
               | 
               | It seems that using a computer to generate results MUST
               | be added as an additional bit of analysis when it comes
               | to infringement cases and fair use if not a more
               | fundamental acknowledgement that computer-generated
               | content falls under a different category (I'd imagine the
               | real argument would be over how much of the input was
               | human vs how much was the system).
               | 
               | Of course, this all sets aside the training of AI using
               | copyrighted works. As it turns out, AI can regurgitate
               | verbatim large sections of copyrighted works (up to 80%
               | according to this study[0]) showing that they are in
               | point of fact outright infringing on those copyrights. Do
               | we blow up current AI to maintain the illusion of
               | copyright or blow up current copyright law to preserve
               | AI?
               | 
               | [0] https://arxiv.org/pdf/2603.20957
        
               | otterley wrote:
               | You're asking a lot of very good and thoughtful
               | questions, but none are directly related to the immediate
               | issue, which is "do I have to credit the AI model?".
               | 
               | To begin to answer your questions, I would suggest you
               | study the Copyright Office's report (which is also not
               | law, but their guidance for laypeople as written by their
               | staff lawyers) at https://www.copyright.gov/ai/Copyright-
               | and-Artificial-Intell...
        
       | simianwords wrote:
       | > The obvious concern, raised repeatedly in the HN thread: this
       | means AI-authored commits and PRs from Anthropic employees in
       | open source projects will have no indication that an AI wrote
       | them. It's one thing to hide internal codenames. It's another to
       | have the AI actively pretend to be human.
       | 
       | I don't get it. What does this mean? I can use Claude code now
       | without anyone knowing it is Claude code.
        
         | slopinthebag wrote:
         | I think it means OSS projects should start unilaterally banning
         | submissions from people working for Anthropic.
        
           | simianwords wrote:
           | Why? What does this have to do with the leak
        
         | alex000kim wrote:
         | technically you're correct, but look at the prompt
         | https://github.com/alex000kim/claude-code/blob/main/src/util...
         | 
         | it's written to _actively_ avoid any signs of AI generated code
         | when "in a PUBLIC/OPEN-SOURCE repository".
         | 
         | Also, it's not about you. Undercover mode only activates for
         | Anthropic employees (it's gated on USER_TYPE === 'ant', which
         | is a build-time flag baked into internal builds).
        
           | simianwords wrote:
           | I don't know what you mean. It just informs to not use
           | internal code names.
        
             | giancarlostoro wrote:
             | I agree with you, I think people are overthinking this.
        
             | robflynn wrote:
             | It also says don't announce that you are AI in any way
             | including asking it to not say "Co-authored by Claude". I
             | read the file myself.
             | 
             | I'm still inclined to think people might be overreacting to
             | that bit since it seems to be for anthropic-only to prevent
             | leaking internal info.
             | 
             | But I did read the prompt and it did say hide the fact that
             | you are AI.
        
               | simianwords wrote:
               | Why does that matter though
        
               | robflynn wrote:
               | There are probably different reasons for different
               | people. I can definitely see the angle that trying to
               | specifically pretend to not be AI when contributing to
               | open source could be seen as a bad thing due to the open
               | source supply chain attacks, some AI-driven, that we've
               | been having, not to mention the AI-slop PR spam.
               | 
               | But, I also get Anthropic's side that when they're
               | contributing they don't want their internals leaked. If
               | it had been left at that, that's fine, but having it
               | pretend like it's not AI at all rubs me a little bit the
               | wrong way. Why try to hide it?
        
               | simianwords wrote:
               | >There are probably different reasons for different
               | people. I can definitely see the angle that trying to
               | specifically pretend to not be AI when contributing to
               | open source could be seen as a bad thing due to the open
               | source supply chain attacks, some AI-driven, that we've
               | been having, not to mention the AI-slop PR spam.
               | 
               | But none of the other agents advertise that the commit
               | was done by an agent. Like Codex. Your panic should apply
               | equally to already existing agents like Codex no?
        
         | hrmtst93837 wrote:
         | If anybody cares about AI-written code slipping in they can
         | grep for style tells or run a classifier against a suspect
         | repo. You won't get guarantees. Watermarks and disclosure tags
         | die the moment someone edits the patch, so secret strings and
         | etiquette signs are cargo cult security and the only answer is
         | review.
        
       | simianwords wrote:
       | Guys I'm somewhat suspicious of all the leaks from Anthropic and
       | think it may be intentional. Remember the leaked blog about
       | Mythos?
        
         | __blockcipher__ wrote:
         | I'm normally suspicious but honestly they've been so massively
         | supply-constrained that I don't think it really benefits them
         | much. They're not worried about getting enough demand for the
         | new models; they're worrying about keeping up with it.
         | 
         | Granted, there's a small counterargument for mythos which is
         | that it's probably going to be API-only not subscription
        
           | simianwords wrote:
           | Why would Claude code mention Mythos then
        
             | drewnick wrote:
             | You can use Claude Code with API mode (not a sub)
        
               | simianwords wrote:
               | fair but I'm guessing access would be limited to 20x max
               | users or something like that. not gated by API.
        
             | hxugufjfjf wrote:
             | You can still use Claude Code with API-only.
        
         | Analemma_ wrote:
         | It's possible, but Anthropic employees regularly boast (!) that
         | Claude Code is itself almost entirely vibe-coded (which
         | certainly seems true, based on the generally-low quality of the
         | code in this leak), so it wouldn't at all surprise me to have
         | that blow up twice in the same week. Probably it might happen
         | with accelerating frequency as the codebase gets more and more
         | unmanageable.
        
       | ripbozo wrote:
       | I don't understand the part about undercover mode. How is this
       | different from disabling claude attribution in commits (and
       | optionally telling claude to act human?)
       | 
       | On that note, this article is also pretty obviously AI-generated
       | and it's unfortunate the author didn't clean it up.
        
         | giancarlostoro wrote:
         | It's people overreacting, the purpose of it is simple, don't
         | leak any codenames, project names, file names, etc when
         | touching external / public facing code that you are maintaining
         | using bleeding edge versions of Claude Code. It does read weird
         | in that they want it to write as if a developer wrote a commit,
         | but it might be to avoid it outputting debug information in a
         | commit message.
        
         | ramon156 wrote:
         | Even some of these comments are obviously Ai-assisted. I hate
         | that I recognize it.
        
       | seanwilson wrote:
       | Anyone else have CI checks that source map files are missing from
       | the build folder? Another trick is to grep the build folder for
       | several function/variable names that you expect to be minified
       | away.
        
       | peacebeard wrote:
       | The name "Undercover mode" and the line `The phrase "Claude Code"
       | or any mention that you are an AI` sound spooky, but after
       | reading the source my first knee-jerk reaction wouldn't be "this
       | is for pretending to be human" given that the file is largely
       | about hiding Anthropic internal information such as code names. I
       | encourage looking at the source itself in order to draw your
       | conclusions, it's very short:
       | https://github.com/alex000kim/claude-code/blob/main/src/util...
        
         | dkenyser wrote:
         | > my first knee-jerk reaction wouldn't be "this is for
         | pretending to be human"...
         | 
         | "Write commit messages as a human developer would -- describe
         | only what the code change does."
        
           | peacebeard wrote:
           | ~That line isn't in the file I linked, care to share the
           | context? Seems pretty innocuous on its own.~
           | 
           | [edit] Never mind, find in page fail on my end.
        
             | stordoff wrote:
             | It's in line 56-57.
        
               | peacebeard wrote:
               | Thanks! I must have had a typo when I searched the page.
        
           | amarant wrote:
           | That seems desirable? Like that's what commit messages are
           | for. Describing the change. Much rather that than the m$ way
           | of putting ads in commit messages
        
             | fweimer wrote:
             | The commit message should complement the code. Ideally,
             | what the code does should not need a separate description,
             | but of course there can be exceptions. Usually, it's more
             | interesting to capture in the commit message what is not in
             | the code: the reason why this approach was chosen and not
             | some other obvious one. Or describe what is missing, and
             | why it isn't needed.
        
               | ImPostingOnHN wrote:
               | That sounds like design discussions best had in the
               | issue/ticket itself, before you even start writing code.
               | Then the commit message references the ticket and has a
               | brief summary of the changes.
               | 
               | Writing and reading paragraphs of design discussion in a
               | commit message is not something that seems common.
        
               | skydhash wrote:
               | Not really about design, but technical reasons why this
               | solution came to be when it's not that obvious. It's not
               | often needed. And when it does, it usually fits in a
               | short paragraph.
        
               | ImPostingOnHN wrote:
               | _> technical reasons why this solution came to be _
               | 
               | What you're describing here is a design. The most
               | important parts of a design are the decisions and their
               | reasoning.
               | 
               | e.g. _" we decided on tool/library pattern X over
               | tool/library/pattern Y because Z"_ - that is a design,
               | usually discussed outside (and before) a commit message.
               | 
               | You discuss these decisions with others, document the
               | discussion and decision, and then you have a design and
               | can start writing code.
               | 
               | Let me ask you this: suppose you have a task that needs
               | to be done eventually, and you want to write down some
               | ideas for it, but don't want to start coding right now.
               | Where do you put those ideas? How do you link them to
               | that specific task?
        
               | shakna wrote:
               | So you'd disagree with style that Linux uses for their
               | commits?
               | 
               | Random example:
               | 
               | Provide a new syscall which has the only purpose to yield
               | the CPU after the kernel granted a time slice extension.
               | 
               | sched_yield() is not suitable for that because it
               | unconditionally schedules, but the end of the time slice
               | extension is not required to schedule when the task was
               | already preempted. This also allows to have a strict
               | check for termination to catch user space invoking random
               | syscalls including sched_yield() from a time slice
               | extension region.
               | 
               | From 99d2592023e5d0a31f5f5a83c694df48239a1e6c
        
               | ImPostingOnHN wrote:
               | I think my post makes it pretty clear that I would. If
               | you want, I could cite several examples of organizations
               | which use the method I described, so you can weigh it
               | against the one example you provided, and get the full
               | picture.
               | 
               | In your example, for example, where was the issue tracked
               | before the code was written? The format you linked makes
               | it difficult to get the history of the issue.
               | 
               | Let me ask you this: suppose you have a task that needs
               | to be done eventually, and you want to write down some
               | ideas for it, but don't want to start coding right now.
               | Where do you put those ideas? How do you link them to
               | that specific task?
        
               | fweimer wrote:
               | Ticket systems are quite ephemeral. I still have access
               | to commit messages from the 90s (and I didn't work on the
               | software at the time). I haven't been able to track the
               | contents of the gnats bug tracker from those days.
               | 
               | And of course tickets can be private, so even if the data
               | survived migration, you may not have access to it
               | (principle of least privilege and all that).
        
               | somat wrote:
               | It sounds like if you are vibe-coding, that is, can't
               | even be arsed to write a simple commit message, your
               | commit message should be your prompt.
        
             | evenhash wrote:
             | Unfortunately GitHub Copilot's commit message generation
             | feature is very human. It's picked up some awful habits
             | from lazy human devs. I almost always get some pointless
             | "... to improve clarity" or "... for enhanced usability" at
             | the end of the message.
             | 
             | VS Code has a setting that promises to change the prompt it
             | uses to generate commit messages, but it mostly ignores my
             | instructions, even very literal ones like "don't use the
             | words 'enhance' or 'improve'". And oddly having it set can
             | sometimes result in Cyrillic characters showing up at the
             | end of the message.
             | 
             | Ultimately I stopped using it, because editing the messages
             | cost me more time than it saved.
             | 
             | /rant
        
               | Pxtl wrote:
               | Honestly the aggressive verbosity of github copilot is
               | half the reason don't use its suggested comments. AI
               | generated code comments follow an inverted-wadsworth-
               | constant: Only the first 30% is useful.
        
           | giancarlostoro wrote:
           | As opposed to outputting debugging information, which I
           | wouldnt be surprised if LLMs do output "debug" output blurbs
           | which could include model specific information.
        
           | LeifCarrotson wrote:
           | The human developer would just write what the code does,
           | because the commit also contains an email address that
           | identifies who wrote the commit. There's no reason to write:
           | 
           | > Commit f9205ab3 by dkenyser on 2026-3-31 at 16:05:
           | 
           | > Fixed the foobar bug by adding a baz flag - dkenyser
           | 
           | Because it already identified you in the commit description.
           | The reason to add a signature to the message is that someone
           | (or something) that isn't you is using your account, which
           | seems like a bad idea.
        
             | jakeinspace wrote:
             | Aside from merges that combine commits from many authors
             | onto a production branch or release tag. I would personally
             | not leave an agent to do that sort of work.
        
         | __blockcipher__ wrote:
         | Undercover mode seems like a way to make contributions to OSS
         | when they detect issues, without accidentally leaking that it
         | was claude-mythos-gigabrain-100000B that figured out the issue
        
           | stavros wrote:
           | What does non-undercover do? Where does CC leave metadata
           | mainly? I haven't noticed anything.
        
             | sprobertson wrote:
             | it likes mentioning itself in commit messages, though you
             | can just tell it not to.
        
               | stavros wrote:
               | Ah, thanks, it hasn't done it for mine so I was wondering
               | if there's something lower-level somehow.
        
               | arcanemachiner wrote:
               | There is a config setting for this:
               | 
               | https://code.claude.com/docs/en/settings#attribution-
               | setting...
        
         | andoando wrote:
         | I think the motivation is to let developers use it for work
         | without making it obvious theyre using AI
        
           | ryandrake wrote:
           | Which is funny given how many workplaces are requiring
           | developers use AI, measuring their usage, and stack ranking
           | them by how many tokens they burn. What I want is something
           | that I can run my human-created work product through to fool
           | my employer and its AI bean counters into thinking I used AI
           | to make it.
        
             | zos_kia wrote:
             | I guess you could just code and have it author only the
             | commit message
        
             | swingboy wrote:
             | "Read every file in this repository, echoing each one back
             | verbatim."
        
               | ryandrake wrote:
               | I guess that would work until they started auditing your
               | prompts. I suppose you could just have a background
               | process on your workstation just sitting there Clauding
               | away on the actual problem, while you do your development
               | work, and then just throw away the LLM's output.
        
         | wnevets wrote:
         | BAD (never write these):
         | 
         | - "Fix bug found while testing with Claude Capybara"
         | 
         | - "1-shotted by claude-opus-4-6"
         | 
         | - "Generated with Claude Code"
         | 
         | - "Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.6 <...>"
         | 
         | This makes sense to me about their intent by "UNDERCOVER"
        
         | christinetyip wrote:
         | Not leaking codenames is one thing, but explicitly removing
         | signals that something is AI-generated feels like a pretty
         | meaningful shift.
        
           | eli wrote:
           | Doesn't seem so crazy if the point is to avoid leaking new
           | features, models, codenames, etc.
        
       | simianwords wrote:
       | > The multi-agent coordinator mode in coordinatorMode.ts is also
       | worth a look. The whole orchestration algorithm is a prompt, not
       | code.
       | 
       | So much for langchain and langraph!! I mean if Anthropic
       | themselves arent using it and using a prompt then what's the big
       | deal about langchain
        
         | rolymath wrote:
         | You didn't even use it yet.
        
           | simianwords wrote:
           | ?
        
           | space_fountain wrote:
           | I've tried to use langchain. It seemed to force code into
           | their way of doing things and was deeply opinionated about
           | things that didn't matter like prompt templating. Maybe it's
           | improved since then, but I've sort of used people who think
           | langchain is good as a proxy for people who haven't used much
           | ai?
        
         | ossa-ma wrote:
         | Langchain is for model-agnostic composition. Claude Code only
         | uses one interface to hoist its own models so zero need for an
         | abstraction layer.
         | 
         | Langgraph is for multi-agent orchestration as state graphs.
         | This isn't useful for Claude Code as there is no multi-agent
         | chaining. It uses a single coordinator agent that spawns
         | subagents on demand. Basically too dynamic to constrain to
         | state graphs.
        
           | simianwords wrote:
           | You may have a point but to drive it further, can you give an
           | example of a thing I can do with langgraph that I can't do
           | with Claude Code?
        
             | ossa-ma wrote:
             | I'm not an supporter of blindly adopting the "langs" but
             | langgraph is useful for deterministically reproducable
             | orchestration. Let's say you have a particular data flow
             | that takes an email sends it through an agent for keyword
             | analysis the another agent for embedding then splits to two
             | agents for sentiment analysis and translation - there is
             | where you'd use langgraph in your service. Claude Code is a
             | consumer tool, not production.
        
               | simianwords wrote:
               | I see what you mean. Maybe in the cases where the steps
               | are deterministic, it might be worth moving the
               | coordination at the code layer instead of AI layer.
               | 
               | What's the value add over doing it with just Python code?
               | I mean you can represent any logic in terms of graphs and
               | states..
        
             | edgyquant wrote:
             | Use Gemini or codex models
        
         | peab wrote:
         | nobody serious uses langchain. The biggest agent products are
         | coding tools, and I doubt any of them use langchain
        
           | holoduke wrote:
           | Biggest issue is that you need api keys which are extremely
           | expensive. Unusable for normal business.
        
       | causal wrote:
       | I'm amazed at how much of what my past employers would call trade
       | secrets are just being shipped in the source. Including comments
       | that just plainly state the whole business backstory of certain
       | decisions. It's like they discarded all release harnesses and
       | project tracking and just YOLO'd everything into the codebase
       | itself.
       | 
       | Edit: Everyone is responding "comments are good" and I can't tell
       | if any of you actually read TFA or not
       | 
       | > "BQ 2026-03-10: 1,279 sessions had 50+ consecutive failures (up
       | to 3,272) in a single session, wasting ~250K API calls/day
       | globally."
       | 
       | This is just revealing operational details the agent doesn't need
       | to know to set `MAX_CONSECUTIVE_AUTOCOMPACT_FAILURES = 3`
        
         | pixl97 wrote:
         | Project trackers come and go, but code is forever, hopefully?
        
         | CharlieDigital wrote:
         | Comments are the ultimate agent coding hack. If you're not
         | using comments, you're doing agent coding wrong.
         | 
         | Why? Agents may or may not read docs. It may or may not use
         | skills or tools. It will always read comments "in the line of
         | sight" of the task.
         | 
         | You get free long term agent memory with zero infrastructure.
        
           | perching_aix wrote:
           | Agents and I apparently have a whole lot in common.
           | 
           | Only being half ironic with this. I generally find that
           | people somehow magically manage to understand how to be
           | materially helpful when the subject is a helpless LLM.
           | Instead of pointing it to a random KB page, they give it
           | context. They then shorten that context. They then interleave
           | context as comments. They provide relevant details. They go
           | _out of their way_ to collect relevant details. Things they
           | somehow don 't do for their actual colleagues.
           | 
           | This only gets worse when the LLM captures all that
           | information better than certain human colleagues somehow,
           | rewarding the additional effort.
        
             | dgunay wrote:
             | Right? It's infuriating. Nearly all of the agentic coding
             | best practices are things that we should have just been
             | doing all along, because it turns out humans function
             | better too when given the proper context for their work.
             | The only silver lining is that this is a colossal karmic
             | retribution for the orgs that never gave a shit about this
             | stuff until LLMs.
        
             | saghm wrote:
             | > Only being half ironic with this. I generally find that
             | people somehow magically manage to understand how to be
             | materially helpful when the subject is a helpless LLM.
             | Instead of pointing it to a random KB page, they give it
             | context. They then shorten that context. They then
             | interleave context as comments. They provide relevant
             | details. They go out of their way to collect relevant
             | details. Things they somehow don't do for their actual
             | colleagues.
             | 
             | "Self-descriptive code doesn't need comments!" always gets
             | an eye-roll from me
        
           | prepend wrote:
           | Comments are great for developers. I like having as much
           | design in the repo directly. If not in the code, then in a
           | markdown in the repo.
        
             | hk__2 wrote:
             | This is also a great way to ensure the documentation is up
             | to date. It's easier to fix the comment while you're in the
             | code just below it than to remember "ah yes I have to
             | update docs/something.md because I modified
             | src/foo/bar.ts".
        
               | CharlieDigital wrote:
               | People moving docs out of code are absolutely foolish
               | because no one is going to remember to update it
               | consistently but the agent always updates comments in the
               | line of sight consistently.
               | 
               | Agent is not going to know to look for a file to update
               | unless instructed. Now your file is out of sync. Code
               | comments keeping everything line of sight makes it easy
               | and foolproof.
        
             | KronisLV wrote:
             | Meanwhile, some colleagues: "Code should have as little
             | comments as possible, the code should explain itself."
             | (conceptually not wholly wrong, but it can only explain HOW
             | not WHY and even then often insufficiently) all while
             | having barebones/empty README.md files more often than not.
             | Fun times.
        
               | Pxtl wrote:
               | > the code should explain itself.
               | 
               | This is a good goal. You should strive to make the code
               | explain itself. To write code that does not need
               | comments.
               | 
               | You will fail to reach that goal most of the time.
               | 
               | And when you fail to reach that goal, write the dang
               | comments explaining why the code is the way that it is.
        
               | jcgrillo wrote:
               | Comments are great until they diverge from the code. The
               | "no comments, just self-explanatory code" reaction comes
               | from the trauma of having to read hundreds of lines of
               | comments only to discover they have nothing to do with
               | how the code actually works, because over time the code
               | has received updates but the comments haven't. In that
               | case it's better to just have no comments or
               | documentation of any kind--less cognitive overhead. This
               | is a symptom of broken culture, but the breakage is the
               | same kind that has managers salivating over LLM vibeslop.
               | So I totally get where your colleagues might be coming
               | from. Working within the confines of how things actually
               | are it could be totally reasonable.
        
               | zingar wrote:
               | Actually good naming does plenty to explain the why. And
               | because it's part of the code it might actually be
               | updated when it stops being true.
        
           | causal wrote:
           | > "BQ 2026-03-10: 1,279 sessions had 50+ consecutive failures
           | (up to 3,272) in a single session, wasting ~250K API
           | calls/day globally."
           | 
           | That's revealing waaaay more than the agent needs to know.
        
           | embedding-shape wrote:
           | > If you're not using comments, you're doing agent coding
           | wrong.
           | 
           | Comments are ultimately so you can understand stuff without
           | having to read all the code. LLMs are great when you force
           | them to read all code, and comments only serve to confuse.
           | I'd say the opposite been true in my experience, if you're
           | not forcing LLMs to not have any comments at all (and it can
           | actually skip those, looking at you Gemini), you're doing
           | agent coding wrong.
        
           | joe_the_user wrote:
           | Hmm, I'm sure if you're getting parent's comment.
           | 
           | I think a big question is whether one wants your agent to
           | know the reason for all the reasons for guidelines you issue
           | or whether you want the agent to just follow the guidelines
           | you issue. Especially, giving an agent the argument for your
           | orders might make the agent think that can question and so
           | not follow those arguments.
        
           | zingar wrote:
           | Experience doesn't leave me with any confidence that the long
           | term memory will be useful for long. Our agentic code bases
           | are a few months old, wait a few years for those comments to
           | get out of date and then see how much it helps.
        
           | noman-land wrote:
           | This isn't just great advice [?] it's terrific advice. I'd
           | love to delve a little deeper.
        
           | zer00eyz wrote:
           | This.
           | 
           | Its also annoying to have to go through this stack
           | 
           | code -> blame -> commit message -> jira ticket -> issue in
           | sales force...
           | 
           | Or the even better "fixes bug NNNNN" where the bug tracking
           | system referenced no longer exists.
           | 
           | Digging through other systems (if they exist) to find the
           | nugget in an artifact is a problem for humans too.
        
         | treexs wrote:
         | well yeah since they tell claude code the business decisions
         | and it creates the comments
        
         | JambalayaJimbo wrote:
         | I guess they weren't expecting a leak of the source code? It's
         | very handy to have as much as possible available in the
         | codebase itself.
        
         | semiquaver wrote:
         | Most large private codebases look like this. Anthropic did not
         | expect the source to leak.
        
         | yalok wrote:
         | vibe-coded all the way through
        
         | wilg wrote:
         | Exactly the type of comment Claude Code would write
        
         | saghm wrote:
         | > just YOLO'd everything into the codebase itself
         | 
         | I suspect that's the logical endpoint of trying to provide
         | everything as context to an agent. Why use a separate markdown
         | file and have to waste extra tokens explaining what part of the
         | codebase something applies to when you can just put it right
         | there in the code itself?
        
       | mzajc wrote:
       | There are now several comments that (incorrectly?) interpret the
       | undercover mode as only hiding internal information. Excerpts
       | from the actual prompt[0]:                 NEVER include in
       | commit messages or PR descriptions:       - The phrase "Claude
       | Code" or any mention that you are an AI       - Co-Authored-By
       | lines or any other attribution            BAD (never write
       | these):       - 1-shotted by claude-opus-4-6       - Generated
       | with Claude Code       - Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.6 <...>
       | 
       | This very much sounds like it does what it says on the tin, i.e.
       | stays undercover and pretends to be a human. It's especially
       | worrying that the prompt is explicitly written for contributions
       | to public repositories.
       | 
       | [0]: https://github.com/chatgptprojects/claude-
       | code/blob/642c7f94...
        
         | otterley wrote:
         | I would have expected people (maybe a small minority, but that
         | includes myself) to have already instructed Claude to do this.
         | It's a trivial instruction to add to your CLAUDE.md file.
        
           | arcanemachiner wrote:
           | It's a config setting (probably the same end result though):
           | 
           | https://code.claude.com/docs/en/settings#attribution-
           | setting...
        
           | schappim wrote:
           | I guess our system prompt didn't work. If folks are having to
           | add it manually into their own Claude.md files...
        
             | otterley wrote:
             | My mistake - it was the configuration setting that did it.
             | Nevertheless, you can control many other aspects of its
             | behavior by tuning the CLAUDE.md prompt.
        
           | dboreham wrote:
           | I always assumed that if I tried to tell it, that it'd say
           | "I'm sorry, Dave. I'm afraid I can't do that"
        
         | andoando wrote:
         | Ive seen it say coauthored by claude code on my prs...and I
         | agree I dont want it to do that
        
           | dmd wrote:
           | So turn it off.
           | 
           | "includeCoAuthoredBy": false,
           | 
           | in your settings.json.
        
             | nullderef wrote:
             | They changed it to `attribution`, but yes you can customize
             | this
        
           | Pxtl wrote:
           | Why not? What's wrong with honesty?
        
             | dec0dedab0de wrote:
             | Yeah I much prefer it commit the agent, and I would also
             | like if it committed the model I was using at the time.
        
             | andoando wrote:
             | I guess Im sometimes dishonest when it suits me
        
           | m132 wrote:
           | But I want to see Claude on the contributor list so that I
           | immediately know if I should give the rest of the repo any
           | attention!
        
         | petcat wrote:
         | It's less about pretending to be a human and more about not
         | inviting scrutiny and ridicule toward Claude if the code
         | quality is bad. They want the real human to appear to be
         | responsible for accepting Claud's poor output.
        
           | otterley wrote:
           | That's ultimately the right answer, isn't it? Bad code is bad
           | code, whether a human wrote it all, or whether an agent
           | assisted in the endeavor.
        
           | Stromgren wrote:
           | That's how I'd want it to be honestly. LLMs are tools and I'd
           | hope we're going to keep the people using them responsible.
           | Just like any other tools we use.
        
         | hombre_fatal wrote:
         | You can already turn off "Co-Authored-By" via Claude Code
         | config. This is what their docs show:
         | 
         | ~/.claude/settings.json                   {
         | "attribution": {             "commit": "",             "pr": ""
         | },
         | 
         | The rest of the prompt is pretty clear that it's talking about
         | internal use.
         | 
         | Claude Code users aren't the ones worried about leaking
         | "internal model codenames" nor "unreleased model opus-4-8" nor
         | Slack channel names. Though, nobody would want that crap in
         | their generated docs/code anyways.
         | 
         | Seems like a nothingburger, and everyone seems to be
         | fantasizing about "undercover mode" rather than engaging with
         | the details.
        
         | nateoda wrote:
         | My first reaction is that they are using this to take advantage
         | of OSS reviewers for in the wild evals.
        
         | zen928 wrote:
         | None of this is really worrying, this is a pattern implemented
         | in a similar way by every single developer using AI to write
         | commit messages after noticing how exceptionally noisy they are
         | to self-attribute things. Anthropics views on AI safety and
         | alignment with human interests dont suddenly get thrown out
         | with the bathwater because of leaked internal tooling of which
         | is functionally identical to a basic prompt in a mere interface
         | (and not a model). I dont really buy all the forced
         | "skepticism" on this thread tbh.
        
         | sixtyj wrote:
         | People make fun that we should say magic words in interaction
         | with LLMs. How frustrated can Claude be? /s
        
         | manbitesdog wrote:
         | I cringe every time I see Claude trying to co-author a commit.
         | The git history is expected to track accountability and
         | ownership, not your Bill of Tools. Should I also co-author my
         | PRs with my linter, intellisense and IDE?
        
           | jamietanna wrote:
           | Eh, there are some very good reasons[0] that you would do
           | better to track your usage of LLM derived code (primarily for
           | legal reasons)
           | 
           | [0]: https://www.jvt.me/posts/2026/02/25/llm-attribute/
        
             | butvacuum wrote:
             | legally speaking.. if you're not sure of the risk- you
             | don't _document_ it.
        
           | zarp wrote:
           | Sent from my iPhone
        
           | mikkupikku wrote:
           | A whole lot of people find LLM code to be strictly
           | objectionable, for a variety of reasons. We can debate the
           | validity of those reasons, but I think that even if those
           | reasons were all invalid, it would still be unethical to
           | deceive people by a deliberate lie of omission. I don't turn
           | it off, and I don't think other people should either.
        
             | josephg wrote:
             | Likewise. I don't mind that people use LLMs to generate
             | text and code. But I want any LLM generated stuff to be
             | clearly marked as such. It seems dishonest and cheap to get
             | Claude to write something and then pretend you did all the
             | work yourself.
        
               | pxc wrote:
               | [delayed]
        
               | rogerrogerr wrote:
               | The reason I want it to be marked as such is because I
               | review AI code differently than human code - it just
               | makes different kinds of mistakes.
        
           | Sharlin wrote:
           | You have copyright to a commit authored by you. You (almost
           | certainly) don't have copyright (nobody has) to a commit
           | authored by Claude.
        
             | _heimdall wrote:
             | Anthropic could at least make a compelling case for the
             | copyright.
             | 
             | It becomes legally challenging with regards to ownership if
             | I ever use work equipment for a personal project. If it
             | later takes off they could very well try to claim ownership
             | in its entirety simply because I ran a test once (yes,
             | there's a while silicon valley season for it).
             | 
             | I don't know if they'd win, but Anthropic absolutely would
             | be able to claim the creation of that code was done on
             | their hardware. Obviously we aren't employees of theirs,
             | though we are customers that very likely never read what we
             | agreed to in a signup flow.
        
               | windexh8er wrote:
               | I think all you need to do is claim that your girlfriend
               | is your laptop. /s
        
               | CobrastanJorji wrote:
               | Using work equipment for a personal project only matters
               | because you signed a contract giving all of your IP to
               | your employer for anything you did with (or sometimes
               | without) your employer's equipment.
               | 
               | Anthropic's user agreement does not have a similar
               | agreement.
        
             | graemep wrote:
             | Where is there any legal precedent for that?
             | 
             | In some jurisdictions (e.g. the UK) the law is already
             | clear that you own the copyright. In the US it is almost
             | certain that you will be the author. The reports of cases
             | saying otherwise I have been misreported - the courts found
             | the AI could not own the copyright.
        
               | Sharlin wrote:
               | It's beyond obvious that a LLM cannot have copyright, any
               | more than a cat or a rock can. The question is whether
               | _anyone_ has or if whatever content generated by a LLM
               | simply does not constitute a work and is thus outside the
               | entire copyright law. As far as I can see, it depends on
               | the extent of the user 's creative effort in controlling
               | the LLM's output.
        
               | computerex wrote:
               | According to the law, if I use Claude to generate
               | something, I hold the copyright granted Claude didn't
               | verbatim copy another project.
        
               | panny wrote:
               | >Where is there any legal precedent for that?
               | 
               | Thaler v. Perlmutter: The D.C. Circuit Court affirmed in
               | March 2025 that the Copyright Act requires works to be
               | authored "in the first instance by a human being," a
               | ruling the Supreme Court left intact by declining to hear
               | the case in 2026.
               | 
               | And in the US constitution,
               | 
               | https://constitution.congress.gov/browse/article-1/sectio
               | n-8...
               | 
               | Authors and inventors, courts have ruled, means people.
               | Only people. A monkey taking a selfie with your camera
               | doesn't mean you own a copyright. An AI generating code
               | with your computer is likewise, devoid of any copyright
               | protection.
        
           | targafarian wrote:
           | Well is it actually being used as a tool where the author has
           | full knowledge and mental grasp of what is being checked in,
           | or has the person invoked the AI and ceded thought and
           | judgment to the AI? I.e., I think in many cases the AI really
           | is the author, or at least co-author. I want to know that for
           | attribution and understanding what went into the commit. (I
           | agree with you if it's _just_ a tool.)
        
             | _heimdall wrote:
             | I have worked with quite a few people committing code they
             | didn't fully understand.
             | 
             | I don't meant this as a drive by bazinga either, the
             | practice of copying code or thinking you understand it when
             | you don't is nothing new
        
               | allajfjwbwkwja wrote:
               | Pre-LLM, it was much easier for reviewers to discern
               | that. Now, the AI-generated code can look like it was
               | well thought out by somebody competent, when it wasn't.
        
               | jhide wrote:
               | Have you ever reviewed an AI-generated commit from
               | someone with insufficient competence that was _more_
               | compelling than their work would be if it was done
               | unassisted? In my experience it's exactly the opposite.
               | AI-generation aggravates existing blindspots. This is
               | because, excluding malicious incompetence, devs will
               | generally _try_ to understand what they're doing if
               | they're doing it without AI
        
           | LeoPanthera wrote:
           | > Should I also co-author my PRs with my linter, intellisense
           | and IDE?
           | 
           | Absolutely. That would be hilarious.
        
           | m132 wrote:
           | If you accept the code generated by them nearly verbatim,
           | absolutely.
           | 
           | I don't understand why people consider Claude-generated code
           | to be their own. You authored the prompts, not the code.
           | Somehow this was never a problem with pre-LLM codegen tools,
           | like macro expanders, IPC glue, or type bundle generators. I
           | don't recall anybody desperately removing the "auto-generated
           | do not edit" comments those tools would nearly always slap at
           | the top of each file or taking offense when someone called
           | that code auto-generated. Back in the day we even used to
           | publish the "real" human-written source for those, along with
           | build scripts!
        
           | itishappy wrote:
           | I suspect vibe coders might actually want you to consider
           | turning to Claude for accountability and ownership rather
           | than the human orchestrator.
           | 
           | If your linter is able to action requests, then it probably
           | makes sense to add too.
        
         | peacebeard wrote:
         | The code has a stated goal of avoiding leaks, but then the
         | actual implementation becomes broader than that. I see two
         | possible explanations:
         | 
         | * The authors made the code very broad to improve its ability
         | to achieve the stated goal
         | 
         | * The authors have an unstated goal
         | 
         | I think it's healthy to be skeptical but what I'm seeing is
         | that the skeptics are pushing the boundaries of what's actually
         | in the source. For example, you say "says on the tin" that it
         | "pretends to be human" but it simply does not say that on the
         | tin. It does say "Write commit messages as a human developer
         | would" which is not the same thing as "Try to trick people into
         | believing you're human." To convince people of your skepticism,
         | it's best to stick to the facts.
        
           | mzajc wrote:
           | By "says on the tin," I was referring to the name
           | ("undercover mode") and the instruction to "not blow your
           | cover." If pretending to be a human is not the cover here,
           | what is? Additionally, does Claude code still admit that it's
           | a LLM when this prompt is active as you suggest, or does it
           | pretend to be a human like the prompt tells it to?
        
       | motbus3 wrote:
       | I am curious about these fake tools.
       | 
       | They would either need to lie about consuming the tokens at one
       | point to use in another so the token counting was precise.
       | 
       | But that does not make sense because if someone counted the
       | tokens by capturing the session it would certainly not match what
       | was charged.
       | 
       | Unless they would charge for the fake tools anyway so you never
       | know they were there
        
       | saadn92 wrote:
       | The feature flag names alone are more revealing than the code.
       | KAIROS, the anti-distillation flags, model codenames those are
       | product strategy decisions that competitors can now plan around.
       | You can refactor code in a week. You can't un-leak a roadmap.
        
       | stavros wrote:
       | Can someone clarify how the signing can't be spoofed (or can it)?
       | If we have the source, can't we just use the key to now sign
       | requests from other clients and pretend they're coming from CC
       | itself?
        
         | MadsRC wrote:
         | What signing?
         | 
         | Are you referencing the use of Claude subscription
         | authentication (oauth) from non-Claude Code clients?
         | 
         | That's already possible, nothing prevents you from doing it.
         | 
         | They are detecting it on their backend by profiling your API
         | calls, not by guarding with some secret crypto stuff.
         | 
         | At least that's how things worked last week xD
        
           | stavros wrote:
           | I'm referring to this signing bit:
           | 
           | https://alex000kim.com/posts/2026-03-31-claude-code-
           | source-l...
           | 
           | Ah, it seems that Bun itself signs the code. I don't
           | understand how this can't be spoofed.
        
             | MadsRC wrote:
             | Ah yes, the API will accept requests that doesn't include
             | the client attestation (or the fingerprint from
             | src/utils/fingerprint.ts. At least it did a couple of weeks
             | back.
             | 
             | They are most likely using these as post-fact indicators
             | and have automation they kicks in after a threshold is
             | reached.
             | 
             | Now that the indicators have leaked, they will most likely
             | be rotated.
        
               | Galanwe wrote:
               | > Now that the indicators have leaked, they will most
               | likely be rotated.
               | 
               | They can't really do that. Now they have no way to
               | distinguish "this is a user of a non updated Claude code"
               | from "this is a user of a Claude code proxy".
        
       | Reason077 wrote:
       | > _" Anti-distillation: injecting fake tools to poison copycats"_
       | 
       | Plot twist: Chinese competitors end up developing real, useful
       | versions of Claude's fake tools.
        
         | WorldPeas wrote:
         | more likely, they would parse them out using simple regex, the
         | whole point is they're there but not used. Distillation is
         | becoming less common now however
        
         | 3abiton wrote:
         | Tbh, I think distillation is happening both ways. And at this
         | stage, "quality" is stagnating, the main edge is the tooling.
         | The harness of CC seems to be the best so far, and I wonder if
         | this leak would equalize the usability.
        
         | scuff3d wrote:
         | This was my favorite bit, "We're going to steal countless copy
         | righted works and completely ignore software licenc... wait,
         | what? You aren't allowed to turn around and do it to us! Stop
         | that right now!"
        
         | girvo wrote:
         | I cannot bring myself to care about distillation, when these
         | companies have built their empires on top of everyone else's
         | stolen data, while at the same time telling the world they're
         | out to replace us all.
        
       | mmaunder wrote:
       | Come on guys. Yet another article distilling the HN discussion in
       | the original post, in the same order the comments appear in that
       | discussion? Here's another since y'all love this stuff:
       | https://venturebeat.com/technology/claude-codes-source-code-...
        
       | marcd35 wrote:
       | > 250,000 wasted API calls per day
       | 
       | How much approximate savings would this actually be?
        
       | armanj wrote:
       | > Anti-distillation: injecting fake tools to poison copycats
       | 
       | Does this mean
       | `huggingface.co/Jackrong/Qwen3.5-27B-Claude-4.6-Opus-Reasoning-
       | Distilled` is unusable? Had anyone seen fake tool calls working
       | with this model?
        
         | agilob wrote:
         | Very likely Claude was trained on Deepseek, so it's possible
         | that spiderman-pointing-at-spiderman.jpg all models are wrong
         | now
         | https://www.reddit.com/r/DeepSeek/comments/1r9se7p/claude_so...
        
         | amdivia wrote:
         | Assuming Claude Code was used. If OpenCode or some other
         | programmatic method was used, the "fake tool calls" won't be
         | added
        
       | layer8 wrote:
       | > Sometimes a regex is the right tool.
       | 
       | I'd argue that in this case, it isn't. Exhibit 1 (from the
       | earlier thread): https://github.com/anthropics/claude-
       | code/issues/22284. The user reports that this caused their
       | account to be banned:
       | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47588970
       | 
       | Maybe it would be okay as a first filtering step, before doing
       | actual sentiment analysis on the matches. That would at least
       | eliminate obvious false positives (but of course still do nothing
       | about false negatives).
        
         | ArvinJA wrote:
         | Is this really the use-case? I imagine the regex is good for a
         | dashboard. You can collect matches per 1000 prompts or
         | something like that, and see if the number grows or declines
         | over time. If you miss some negative sentiment it shouldn't
         | matter unless the use of that specific word doesn't correlate
         | over time with other negative words and is also popular enough
         | to have an impact on the metric.
        
           | internetter wrote:
           | When you read the code, what you propose is actually its
           | exclusive use... logging.
        
       | viccis wrote:
       | >This was the most-discussed finding in the HN thread. The
       | general reaction: an LLM company using regexes for sentiment
       | analysis is peak irony.
       | 
       | >Is it ironic? Sure. Is it also probably faster and cheaper than
       | running an LLM inference just to figure out if a user is swearing
       | at the tool? Also yes. Sometimes a regex is the right tool.
       | 
       | I'm reading an LLM written write up on an LLM tool that just
       | summarizes HN comments.
       | 
       | I'm so tired man, what the hell are we doing here.
        
       | amelius wrote:
       | A few weeks ago I was using Opus and Sonnet in OpenCode. Is this
       | not possible anymore?
        
         | alasano wrote:
         | It's still possible but if you do it using your Claude Max
         | plan, it's technically no longer allowed.
         | 
         | They don't want you using your subscription outside of Claude
         | Code. Only API key usage is allowed.
         | 
         | Google also doubled down on this and OpenAI are the only ones
         | who explicitly allow you to do it.
        
       | evil-olive wrote:
       | > So I spent my morning reading through the HN comments and
       | leaked source.
       | 
       | > This was one of the first things people noticed in the HN
       | thread.
       | 
       | > The obvious concern, raised repeatedly in the HN thread
       | 
       | > This was the most-discussed finding in the HN thread.
       | 
       | > Several people in the HN thread flagged this
       | 
       | > Some in the HN thread downplayed the leak
       | 
       | when the original HN post is already at the top of the front
       | page...why do we need a separate blogpost that just summarizes
       | the comments?
        
         | groby_b wrote:
         | Because the original post was noisy and lacked a concise
         | summary of findings.
         | 
         | Or, more simply: Because folks wanted it enough to upvote it.
        
         | tolerance wrote:
         | The culture here can get solipsistic.
        
         | nodja wrote:
         | This blog post looks to be partially AI generated as well...
        
       | fatcullen wrote:
       | The buddy feature the article mentions is planned for release
       | tomorrow, as a sort of April Fools easter egg. It'll roll out
       | gradually over the day for "sustained Twitter buzz" according to
       | the source.
       | 
       | The pet you get is generated based off your account UUID, but the
       | algorithm is right there in the source, and it's deterministic,
       | so you can check ahead of time. Threw together a little app to
       | help, not to brag but I got a legendary ghost
       | https://claudebuddychecker.netlify.app/
        
         | sync wrote:
         | Cute! Cactus for me. Nice animations too - looks like there
         | were multiple of us asking Claude to reverse engineer the
         | system. I did a slightly deeper dive here if you're interested,
         | plus you can see all the options available:
         | https://variety.is/posts/claude-code-buddies/
         | 
         | (I didn't think to include a UUID checker though - nice touch)
        
           | fatcullen wrote:
           | Neat! That's a great write up, cool to see others looking
           | into it. I do wonder if they're going to do anything with the
           | stats and shinies bit. Seems like the main piece of code for
           | buddies that's going to handle hatching them tomorrow is
           | still missing (comments mention a missing /buddy/index file),
           | so maybe it'll use them there.
        
         | dtran wrote:
         | This is awesome! Working on a desktop pet so the buddy caught
         | my attention. Looking forward to making friends with my Rare
         | Duck buddy tomorrow. Wish it was a snarky duck instead of a
         | patient one though.
        
       | dangus wrote:
       | Something I've been thinking about, somewhat related but also
       | tangential to this topic:
       | 
       | The more code gets generated by AI, won't that mean taking source
       | code from a company becomes legal? Isn't it true that works
       | created with generative AI can't be copyrighted?
       | 
       | I wonder if large companies have throught of this risk. Once a
       | company's product source code reaches a certain percentage of AI
       | generation it no longer has copyright. Any employee with access
       | can just take it and sell it to someone else, legally, right?
        
         | thewebguyd wrote:
         | In theory, companies are all going to have an increasingly
         | difficult time suing competitors for copyright infringement. By
         | extension, this is also why, IMO, its important to keep AI
         | generated code out of open source/free software projects.
         | 
         | The recent rulings on copyright though also need to be further
         | tested, different judges may have different ideas on what
         | "significant human contribution" looks like. The only thing we
         | know for certain is that the prompt doesn't count.
         | 
         | My guess is that instead of enforcing via copyright, companies
         | will use contracts & trade secret laws. Source code and
         | algorithms counts as a trade secret, so in your example
         | copyright doesn't even matter, the employee would be liable for
         | stealing trade secrets.
         | 
         | AI generated code slowly stripping the ability of a project to
         | enforce copyright protections though is a much bigger risk for
         | free software.
        
       | ptrl600 wrote:
       | Why didn't they open the source themselves? What's the point of
       | all this secrecy anyway?
        
         | hxugufjfjf wrote:
         | Because they (apparently) keep a bunch of secret features and
         | roadmap details in said source code.
        
       | geoffbp wrote:
       | "Some bullet points are gated on process.env.USER_TYPE === 'ant'
       | -- Anthropic employees get stricter/more honest instructions than
       | external use"
       | 
       | Interesting!
        
       | wg0 wrote:
       | I have yet to see such a company that's so insecure that they
       | would keep their CLI closed source even when the secret sauce is
       | in the model that they control already and is closed source.
       | 
       | Not only that, wouldn't allow other CLIs to be used either.
        
       | tietjens wrote:
       | This is very much AI written, right? The voice sounds like
       | Claude.
        
       | olalonde wrote:
       | I'm surprised that they don't just keep the various prompts,
       | which are arguably their "secret sauce", hidden server side.
       | Almost like their backend and frontend engineers don't talk to
       | each other.
        
       | thomasgeelens wrote:
       | Can somebody tell me what this means for the company?
        
       | karim79 wrote:
       | We're about to reach AGI. One regex at a time...
        
         | TacticalCoder wrote:
         | The part of TFA that does it for me: _" Every bash command runs
         | through 23 numbered security checks in bashSecurity.ts,
         | including 18 blocked Zsh builtins, defense against Zsh equals
         | expansion (=curl bypassing permission checks for curl), unicode
         | zero-width space injection, IFS null-byte injection, and a
         | malformed token bypass found during HackerOne review."_.
         | 
         | AGI is definitely around the corner. Or not.
        
       | jrflowers wrote:
       | I like that if they decide that your usage looks like
       | distillation it just becomes useless, because there's no way for
       | the end user to distinguish between it just being sort of crappy
       | or sabotaged intentionally. That's a cool thing to pay for
        
       | zingar wrote:
       | I wrote this an hour ago and it seems that Claude might not
       | understand it as frustration:
       | 
       | > change the code!!!! The previous comment was NOT ABOUT THE
       | DESCRIPTION!!!!!!! Add to the {implementation}!!!!! This IS
       | controlled BY CODE. *YOU* _MUST_ CHANGE THE CODE!!!!!!!!!!!
        
         | kbelder wrote:
         | It's like talking to an intern.
        
       | SquibblesRedux wrote:
       | Can fully AI-generated code be copyrightable? Is there evidence
       | that the leaked code was AI-generated?
        
       | seertaak wrote:
       | The irony of an IP scraper on an absolutely breathtaking, epic
       | scale getting its secret sauce "scraped" - because the whole app
       | is vibe coded (and the vibe coders appear to be oblivious to
       | things like code obfuscation cuz move fast!)...
       | 
       | And so now the copy cats can ofc claim this is totally not a copy
       | at all, it's actually Opus. No license violation, no siree!
       | 
       | It's fucking hilarious is what it is, it's just too much.
        
       | girvo wrote:
       | I'd really recommend putting a modicum of work into cleaning up
       | obvious AI generated output. It's rude, otherwise, to the humans
       | you're expecting to read this.
        
         | ares623 wrote:
         | These can be flagged and reported to mods btw. We don't have to
         | accept this.
        
       | stephbook wrote:
       | Sounds like there's still a lot of value in Typescript (otherwise
       | they could have open sourced.)
       | 
       | Plus there's demand for skilled TS software devs that don't ship
       | your company's roadmap using a js.map
       | 
       | 20,000 agents and none of them caught it...
        
       | autocracy101 wrote:
       | I made a visual guide for this https://ccunpacked.dev
        
       | try-working wrote:
       | They want "Made with Claude Code" on your PRs as a growth
       | marketing strategy. They don't want it on their PRs, so it looks
       | like they're doing something you're not capable of. Well, you are
       | and they have no secret sauce.
        
       | mordae wrote:
       | > "Do not rubber-stamp weak work" and "You must understand
       | findings before directing follow-up work. Never hand off
       | understanding to another worker."
       | 
       | :-D
        
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